


happy and free

by triplesalto



Category: Emma - Jane Austen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 20:37:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9624383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triplesalto/pseuds/triplesalto
Summary: Afterwards, Jane is immensely glad that Frank insisted on keeping their engagement a secret for so long.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xenoglossy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenoglossy/gifts).



> I love these two and it was great fun to write them. Thanks for the prompts, xenoglossy! I hope you enjoy this ficlet. :)

Afterwards, Jane is immensely glad that Frank insisted on keeping their engagement a secret for so long.

For if he had not, Jane might never have come to find that her heart was differently given than she had supposed. If Frank had owned her to the world in the beginning, and married her damn the consequences, she might now be poor as a churchmouse and – worse – tied for life. If theirs had been true love, she would have paid the price without flinching; or so she liked to tell herself, for although Jane was more sensible than she was over-romantic, still she liked to think of herself as honorable and not mercenary. 

However, it had not been true love, and Frank’s delay had given Jane the space she needed to know that, and for that Jane will be forever grateful.

She says as much to Emma, one bright sunlit day, as they lie on the picnic blanket in the garden, watching the clouds float by overhead.

“Grateful to Frank, after all he put you through?” Emma says, indignant. “I should think not.”

He is married now, to a sweet young thing with a head on her shoulders. Jane is happy for them. 

“But think, Emma,” Jane says, tracing a design on her love’s hand, “if he had not delayed, I should be a married woman. And then we should never have found each other.”

“You would never have known the bliss that comes from being wrapped in my arms,” Emma says, her voice low and intimate, the teasing lilt making Jane blush.

“Hush,” she says, although she knows that Emma’s father will never come outside on what he would call a blustery day, and the servants are far too busy and uninterested to care, and George Knightley never comes around anymore, not after Emma turned him down and almost laughed in his face.

“Perhaps you would have married Knightley,” Jane says, daring to press a kiss to the base of Emma’s thumb.

“If I had taken leave of my senses, perhaps. I do not like being chid all the time.”

Jane smiles. It is a warm day, and her Emma is at her side. Everything is perfect. “I chide you, my heart.”

“Well, it’s different when _you_ do it,” Emma says. 

“And also you love me,” Jane says, her voice steady with an effort, because this is almost more than she can bear; her heart is full to overflowing.

“Yes,” Emma says, and there is a smile not only on her face, but in her eyes. “Yes, I most surely do.”

If any servants had looked into the garden at that moment, they might have been startled to see Miss Emma lean down to kiss Miss Jane. What was the world coming to?

But they did not, and our heroines snuggled on the picnic blanket together under the summer skies, happy and free.


End file.
